


Fading light

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Noir, M/M, Missing Persons, Multi, Self-Harm, could be read as platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 19:51:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15825801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: After the failed train attack, one person is missing.





	Fading light

Watching Roy pace is unbearable. Watching him unravel as he paces—even more so.

Tenacity has seen Roy keep control even in the face of absolute hell, moving from cot to cot, from corner to corner, radiating calm, holding hands of the dying. Watching him then was a relief, his mere presence bringing peace to the features twisted with pain just moments ago. Despite the antagonism of some of his ‘colleagues’ (especially Fr. Generosity), despite the initial wariness of the hospital staff. Despite that there was no-one sharing his faith, exactly. But he never cared for any of that. If the pained and the dying soldiers asked for ‘that priest with a mouthful of a name’, he would come. If they didn’t ask, he would come nonetheless, his clean-shaven head often dirty with soot and blood, his robes patchy, but the beads wrapped around his forearm striking creamy-white and rattling soothingly. He never talked or asked much, but always listened well. He was above it all, it looked like, above the shit and blood and moans and screams, the miasma. Like Death himself. Brother Death, some called him with fondness and reverence, though in Tenacity’s morphine-addled view he was not ‘brother’. Regal as he was, Tenacity was thinking of a different word for him.

Tenacity has seen him quietly walk out when ‘God Save The King’ started ringing in the air; and he has seen him singing ‘Fred Karno’s Army’, just once, with much emotion, to the astonishment and delight of immeasurably tired soldiers.

Tenacity has seen fury sculpting Roy’s face into a perfect mask of tranquillity. He has seen him kill in that state, effective, methodical, calm as a marble statue, terrible as godly wrath.

He has seen him drunk, just once, dark with it.

He has seen Roy in joy, in confusion, swept by passion.

He has never seen him like this—and he wishes he had never seen him like this.

Roy is _unravelling_.

The police officers, perched on desks, sitting on chairs, are all watching him with a mix of sympathy of concern—if they even watch him at all. Tenacity has a burning desire to force those who turn away to look, to witness how Roy is unravelling—but the reasonable part of him tells him he shouldn’t. They have done everything they could, and more than they had to do, and guilt is darkening their faces, too.

‘There must be something we’ve missed,’ Roy says, his voice more hoarse than usual. He doesn’t stop his incessant pacing. His coat is thrown over a chair, his blue waistcoat is wrinkled from spending two days and a night at the station and three days without sleep. His face is dark with stubble. Tenacity’s attempts to force him to eat anything have been unsuccessful so far.

‘There _must_ be,’ Roy rasps. His eyes are bright and bloodshot, and can’t seem to stop on anything for long. He makes another line across the floor, turns sharply by the door, resumes his pacing to the other wall.

‘Everyone who has been arrested is accounted for,’ says one of the officers, Colonel Mancer. His is one of the faces of sympathy. His husband has come several times throughout these hellish days, bringing soup and sandwiches that Tenacity forced himself to eat. He has to do it even though he has no stomach for it. He has to stay sane—for Roy. ‘Every hospital is notified.’

‘Then those who scuttled away.’

‘You have seen the message from Ms. Judy,’ says another officer. He’s younger than the Colonel, but his hair is all white just like the Colonel’s. They have clashed with Roy before already, but now his words cannot raise any other reaction from Roy than a jerk of his shoulders. ‘Even the BOI confirmed they haven’t—’

‘Then they are lying! He is _not dead_!’ Roy stops abruptly, hands flying up to his face, the tassels of the beads wrapped over his arm swaying…

Tenacity jumps off his perch on the desk and rushes to him; he has seen this, too, a night ago. He wrestles Roy’s hands away from his face, but the grooves on his temples are already filling with blood.

Tenacity fits the fingers of his left hand between Roy’s and pulls him to his chest with his right hand. His heart is burning with pain. ‘We’ll find Innocence. We will.’


End file.
